South African Writer: We Need More Gun Owners, Not Less

RSA gun guy Gideon Joubert emailed me this morning: “I have written an article regarding the necessity of firearm ownership in South Africa. It is in response to negative press regarding gun ownership brought about by the highly publicized Oscar Pistorius trial.”

Gun ownership in South Africa has again been thrust into the spotlight, in no small part thanks to the high profile criminal case against Oscar Pistorius gracing our television screens and the front pages of almost every newspaper and weekly publication. It is mind-boggling that the allegedly negligent actions of but one famous public figure can reflect so badly on an entire population of lawful and responsible gun owners. Unfair indeed, but alas not unexpected . . .

There is a deluge of deceptive, inaccurate, and downright untruthful misinformation about the nature of firearms and firearm ownership propagated through the media by organisations like Gun Free South Africa (GFSA), and the public readily believe these inaccuracies due to ignorance and naïveté regarding the issue.

For one thing, the Republic of South Africa is a country where violent crime is endemic. In 2007, we recorded 17 firearms-related homicides per 100k population. That translates to about 44 murders a day. In comparison, the United States recorded 3.6 firearms-related homicides per 100k population (2011).

Then, in a final act of sickening brutality, they drowned the couple’s 12-year-old son in scalding bath water.

Amaro Viana was murdered to prevent him from identifying the three housebreakers who carried out the raid in suburban South Africa.

This is not something I am willing to let happen to my family. In my own social circle I am far from the only person who carries his gun concealed on him every day. Most of my friends do exactly the same. We are all firmly aware that a great responsibility is thrust upon our individual shoulders when one owns and carries a firearm, and it is not something we as a community take lightly.

As you’d expect, members of this community prove the value of armed self-defense on a regular basis. I have taken the liberty of providing some links below to stories involving successful defensive gun use by ordinary citizens like you and I, also bearing in mind that many defensive gun uses do not even make it into the media at all and these are but a few examples only. [Click on the headline to read the article.]

South African firearms legislation, the Firearms Control Act of 2000 (FCA), is among the most restrictive and onerous gun laws in the world. It has failed to stem the out of control violence in our country perpetrated by criminals; the horrendous number of people killed monthly in Manenberg, Mitchell’s Plain and Lavender Hill attest to that.

Our criminal element has a virtually limitless source of guns with which to ply their violent trade, and the only thing a prohibition on legal civilian firearm ownership will achieve is to make law abiding citizens completely defenceless. There are frequent media reports on the inefficiency of the South African Police in responding to violent crimes in progress. Would any citizen want to gamble their and their family’s lives on the response time of our Police Service? I truly hope not.

Yet if GFSA have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the SAPS response time. GFSA claim that they seek only expanded gun control and the stricter enforcement of the FCA, which is untrue. They seek a total prohibition of firearms in civilian possession, and they admitted this fact when pressed by Gun Owners of South Africa (GOSA). What we desperately need in this country is more legal civilian firearm ownership, not less.

Sad, they should have put it in their constitution before turning over the state to the communists/tribalists. The black elite tribalists will go in only one direction with this, and it is not toward more legal gun ownership. This ends in Zimbabwe, which many in the west hold responsibility for. They, particularily the left and Jimmy Carter, were directly responsible for the rise of Mugabe, and to this day they refuse to take any responsibility for their actions.

Most of the criminals in RSA are black, and most of the victims too, which reflects the population. You’d think that the RSA government would want the crime to stop, but it’s more important for the G to control guns.

It’s not only easier for criminals to steal from unarmed citizens, but it’s also easier for the RSA government to steal from unarmed citizens. So there you have it.

Disarming South Africans is how the new loudmouth socialists can legislate and enforce the redistribution of farmland to uneducated filth who have no clue how to work the land and will end up destroying it (something the left wing lunatics in that country have been espousing as a campaign ticket). Policies like that will result in South Africa falling off a cliff and in about 2 decades we’re going to see bleeding heart charity campaigns showing how the rotten, thug filth who were given government-stolen redistributed land and now starving to death because they don’t know, never bothered to learn how, and are too lazy to farm. Gun Control never ever works. Scumbag Control always works. When Scumbags run the government the days of stability in the country are numbered, no matter how prosperous it started off.

I don’t think he’s being racist, just realistic. I’m South African, a coloured born in ’93, supposedly free. Apartheid may have been bad, but it was safe. If you’re a normal – not rich and influential – person in this country you notice a ‘reverse apartheid’ effect.
The only difference is unlike in apartheid, they don’t throw it in your face, so most people don’t think about it.
Most of the men in my family, grandfather, uncles, parents’ cousins, etc. had guns during apartheid.
And yes, we’re all coloured. When the new laws came into play many of them lost their licenses because they couldn’t register them properly. Alot of them didn’t even hear about the laws and lost them by default.
You basically have to justify every license to the police. So if they say no, it’s a no. We lived in a ‘safe neighbourhood’ so they saw no need for my grandfather to keep his. He didn’t want to pay the ‘extra administration fees’ that would have gotten it back, he believed in being honest.
I have 2 uncles that still have theirs. 1 paid, but the other didn’t. He was just good friends with the captain at his local station.

Everyone in my family that remembers apartheid say it was better than this. Play nice with the bored cops, make jokes and they leave you alone generally. Many of them weren’t hardcore racist, ‘apartheids etters’ as my grandfather would call them. At least the normal cops, that is. Half the time we didn’t lock the back door. Never saw the need.

Ask a normal South African who is old enough to remember, preferably coloured, which they prefer. The answer would surprise you. Coloureds in this country are always in the middle. Our perspectives are less jaded.

Unlike the media would have you believe, we didn’t all rush out to vote ANC in ’94. The coloureds that did were the kids caught up in political fervour and the parents that were convinced by their kids that it would be better.

Unless you were born here, you can’t really comment on the value of apartheid. It may have been bad, but this is worse. It’s just that nobody wants to admit it.

Whilst I agree the days gone by were better in some ways, one cannot possibly say that the era of apartheid was better than today.
Since you play the race card in your post, we should inform all those who don’t know the history of south africa, that “coloureds” enjoyed many priveledges of being “second class” which means they were the FIRST CLASS from amongst the “non-whites.” and received preferential treatment over everyone else in every facet of being a citizen of RSA. Another fact is that whoever had licenced firearms from before the new firearms act in South Africa, never had to lose their firearms, as all ORIGINAL licences are still valid, as per court order. Some who were not up to speed on the rulings, handed their firearms in to the S.A.P.S. for destruction.
At 21 years old you really have no experience to comment on apartheid other than to quote what you’ve been told.

Who could ever have foreseen that South Africa would suffer high crime, eh? One had better educate one’s underclass if one is going to stay in-country after one’s overthrow! Yes, the overthrow was forced by outside pressure, but that could have been foreseen decades sooner. Still, get guns. There is no other answer. Scary.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe, not South Africa. I still have liberal cousins who refuse to believe he hasn’t been good for the country. These are the same cousins who tried three liberal enclaves before retreating to the gun haven of northern New Hampshire. They’re anti-gun, pro-oppressed-minorities, have written additional versus to “Kumbaya,” but they’ve had it with crime, so they moved to a white free for guns enclave. It makes me laugh. And they know it.

I never for a moment saw Pistorius’ behavior as a commentary on crime. To me it was just another “big celebrity ego goes over the top and kills his ex, or soon-to-be ex, or spouse. It happens regularly. Guns make it easier, but so to poisons and lead pipes.

At least there are some really nice toys to be had on the continent. If you’re already going to be breaking the law in defending yourself, you may as well go whole hog and getchoself an RPD.
“RPD: The ultimate in developing world home defence since 1945.”™

It always surprises me to hear how similar the situation is in far flung places. I don’t know why it surprises me, but it does. Same shit, different country. Really nice piece of writing here. Good luck to you, man.

There’s genocide going on in South Africa and the world is ignoring it. Blacks are killing whites at a record rate, the highest rate in the world. The discriminatory polices of the ANC is far worse than apartheid ever was, yet there is no outcry from the EU, UN, and the US? Why?

The liberal progressive media is massively racist. They care not one whit about blacks killing blacks, or blacks killing whites. God forbid that a “white Hispanic” should kill a young black man who was beating his head on the sidewalk, and you’ll never hear the end of it. The media really has a thing for gun crimes committed by whites – Sandy Hook, Aurora, blade runner, Zimmerman (who became white in the media’s eyes just so he could be vilified).

Perhaps it sounds racist, but I don’t see much media attention regarding crimes committed by blacks in Chicago, RSA, or other urban enclaves.

I frankly don’t give a rip about skin color, I care about the content of a man’s heart. I consider MLK a hero, but am “unqualified” to talk about race because I just happen to be European American (white).

If the RSA establishes gun control, the criminals will benefit just like everywhere else.

RSA does have gun control. Annual licensing fees, mandatory training, mandatory storage laws, police safe inspections, limits on the number of firearms you can own, limits on the amount of ammo and power you can own. Now, with all that said, a gun license there is also a license to carry and it’s good across the entire country. There are no local laws on carrying and possession.

I was referring more to the CT style gun control where confiscation threats and such might be more likely to concentrate gun in the hands of criminals – kind of like how gun free zones seem to concentrate possession in the hands of psychos.

Andy, I am betting that RSA is not a “shall issue” country though. Am I right? Because when you give any group the right to make subjective decisions about who will be armed those decisions will often be prejudiced in one way or another. Too easy to manipulate the system, delay permits, deny them to whoever you think looks “suspiciouis”, does not think the same as you, does not contribute to your political party and so on. Which is likely the basis for the “shall issue” statutes in many of the states in the U.S.A..